Science-triffic! The Mead has a week of Scientific adventures.

Science week is an event celebrated at The Mead. It is an excellent opportunity to highlight the subject in fun ways, letting the children experiment with different concepts and understand the world around them. It can ignite a love for science and an appreciation for the scientific method.

This year’s theme was ‘Connections’ – an abstract concept that allowed the children to think broadly about any connection in nature, society or elsewhere. The children made posters and played games focusing on connections between people, animals, habitats, materials, and countries and tried their experiments, carefully recording outcomes. Below are some highlights from science week at school:

Pre-Reception gets their hands messy with bread making

Pre-Reception used a traditional mix of flour, water, yeast and salt to make their bread during science week. When these ingredients are combined and kneaded, the children learnt that the yeast produces carbon dioxide, which gets trapped in the dough, causing it to rise. Pre-Reception learnt that science is in everything they do and can be yummy too!

Bake off

The theme of baking runs heavily in science. The children experimented to see how yeast makes energy, a process known as fermentation. They looked at how yeast grows at different temperatures and under different conditions.

Year 1 use their senses

In science, the year group looked at sensory gardens and used their five senses. The children tried to name various common plants and choose their favourite smelling, sounding, feeling and looking plants. They finished with a taste of the basil plant.

The science of soap making: A chemical reaction that cleans!

Year 5 looked at the difference between sustainable soap bars and liquid soap. Their ongoing investigations use bread to monitor the mould spores over a couple of weeks.

Span-tastic engineering

Year 6 designed, built and tested custom bridges using commonly available materials, testing how much weight they could withstand. This experiment had them laser-focused on understanding forces, moments, tension and materials to make a bridge that could support the heaviest load. What a fantastic way to learn by doing!